Albert Bloch

All posts tagged Albert Bloch

Die drei Pierrots No. 2

Posted by Maverick ~ on March 30, 2018
Posted in: Art, Music, Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

Die drei Pierrots Nr. 2 (The Three Pierrots No. 2)
Albert Bloch
American, 1882-1961
Oil on canvas (1911)

"Die drei Pierrots Nr. 2 features pantomime figures from the commedia dell'arte, a style of improvisational comedic theater developed in 16th- and 17th-century Italy. Aspiring to evoke a range of emotional states, Albert Bloch superimposed three images of Pierrot, an outsider character in the commedia, with whom many modern artists identified. By reducing the figures to abstract shapes and layering their forms against a colorful abstract background, Bloch created an especially dynamic composition.

St. Louis native Albert Bloch spent more than a decade in Germany beginning in 1908. In Munich in 1911, he was the only American invited to participate in the first exhibition of the avant-garde Blue Rider group. Die drei Pierrots Nr. 2 was one of Bloch's six entries."

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The Green Domino

Posted by Maverick ~ on August 26, 2017
Posted in: Art, Music, Photography. Tagged: , , , , .

“Albert Bloch is an artist of international and local importance. Associated with the German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) while living in Munich, he later served as the head of the Department of Painting and Drawing at the University of Kansas. The Green Domino, painted in Munich, reveals Bloch’s passion for the expressive powers of simplified forms and intense color. The curious figures who occupy this brightly colored, prismatically fractured space are based on characters from 16th- and 17th-century Italian improvisational comedic theatre. The vivid central figure, after which the painting is titled, also had contemporary connections. It pays tribute to a renowned singer who performed at a popular cabaret, and may also honor a Russian dancer who, like Bloch, was a member of the Blue Rider circle.”  — The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

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